The others indulged
in no such prudery on so hot a night. They put out the lamps and
got ready for bed and into it by the dim light trickling in
through the big rear doorway and the two small side doorways
forward. To help on the circulation of air Pat raised the stage
curtain and drop, and opened the little door forward. Each
sleeper had a small netting suspended over him from the ceiling;
without that netting the dense swarms of savage mosquitoes would
have made sleep impossible. As it was, the loud singing of these
baffled thousands kept Susan awake.
After a while, to calm her brain, excited by the evenings
thronging impressions and by the new--or, rather,
reviewed--ambitions born of them, Susan rose and went softly out
on deck, in her nightgown of calico slip. Because of the breeze
the mosquitoes did not trouble her there, and she stood a long
time watching the town's few faint lights--watching the stars,
the thronging stars of the Milky Way--dreaming--dreaming--dreaming.
Yesterday had almost faded from her, for youth lives only in
tomorrow--youth in tomorrow, age in yesterday, and none of us
in today which is all we really have. And she, with her wonderful
health of body meaning youth as long as it lasted, she would
certainly be young until she was very old--would keep her youth--her
dreams--her living always in tomorrow. She was dreaming of her
first real tomorrow, now.
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